Own Art

It would be lovely to fill one's home with art work, but we don't all live the kind of life that allows for it. I have found that a way to feed my art passion is to buy art zines. Zines are usually homemade or small-batch produced books/booklets. They can be on any subject from DIY, to graphic novels, to feminism. I have been into zines for a long time and the ones that excite me the most are art ones or comics/graphic novels. I have bought quite a few over the years and they are usually very reasonable. If you're interested in buying an art zine or two, try Etsy, they have a zine section. Or look through the resources on the pin board below.   Some of the ones listed on the board are actually free online graphic novels.

Art from Around the Web

A little curated inspiration while I get back into the swing of things.

Whispers from the Office: Scissors

As promised, I am doing a drawing a day. I have decided to begin by picking items I have in my office. It is interesting how much I learn and also how much more I see I must learn. These scissors seemed an easy choice but in fact were not so straightforward. The lack of detail and the hard lines meant that proportion and the need for accuracy were important because I couldn't rely on details as I would say, with a flower to do the work for me.

The Deception of Words

Summer is in full swing and so there are fewer community enrichment classes, which leaves me trying to continue my studies in other ways.
One way has been to take another MOOC. A few months back I did an excellent one through CALarts, the one I am taking now is through MOMA. 'Art & Activity: Interactive Strategies for Engaging with Art' is aimed at educators, but there is great deal to learn here about creativity and learning even if one is not an educator.  Many of the activities described are aimed at communication that is non-discursive, that is, without using words to articulate meaning or feeling.

Some of us, myself definitely included, have learned to rely on the word too much. The word is not always our friend. It is words that convince me not to act, that there's no point, that I am being naive in thinking I can produce anything of value. Words can offer encouragement which we rely on and if we hear anything negative we risk stopping.

With this in mind, I choose to act. My aim is to produce a drawing everyday.  Drawing has been my Achille's and I would like it to be something I feel comfortable doing. And I call on educators now. When I child has literacy challenges, that is problems with reading and writing, teachers see this as something serious, for our world is so dependent on these skills.  If a child demonstrates little skill in drawing,  educators often shrug and claim, that they're not very artistic and little is done about it. Imagine if this were not so, imagine if teachers worked as hard to promote art as they do literacy, how it would change the way we work, see art perhaps live our lives.

To be Discontent

 My sisters says that our family has the tendency to to 'look towards the horizon'. Meaning that we have a habit of always looking for the next thing. Despite having so much to be grateful for, I still look for things to work towards. I think it's this part of my nature that led me to art classes, and yet I still wonder why exactly I chose that collage class and at that point in my life.

Tuesday was the beginning of a new class and at the start our teacher (Ursula this time) told us that the Universe had told her to paint. I envy this assuredness, I'm not sure I have ever had it. At the moment two paths diverge and I don't think I would recognize any message from the universe. My habit is to choose the sensible path, but art has taught me to be discontent for this leads to work and to be defiant because if I had not been, I would never have produced anything. This is a new disposition that I am still learning to live within.

I am beginning to look forward to the not knowing aspect of drawing, painting etc. Much of what I do in life forces me to plan and predetermine so that when I get to doing it, it already seems old and drab.

I look at this work above and the energy bursting from it and its inconceivable to me that only a few hours earlier it didn't exist. The fact that I created it and had no idea a few hours earlier that this would be the result is amazing to me too.

Thinking in Cicadas

I didn't want to go to class last night, I had been feeling under the weather. But it was the last one and I forced myself along.
After a few minutes of drawing, I felt quite well again.  Below is the result, a cicada from above and beneath on toned paper. When I first started the drawing I gave up as I thought it was too small. As always, my teacher encouraged me to keep going. It is simple advice and it is always correct.

This detailed work is like deep thought. I examined the cicada in every detail from every angle. I noticed the tiny ridges and markings, marveling at the precise detail nature had given the insect despite its diminutive size. It's wings, after years of lifelessness, still maintained a luster and color that would rival a stained glass window.
As my teacher observed, the patterns of its body and head are reminiscent of an Egyptian tomb, the colors reminded me also of those rich hues that Klimt used.  Unfortunately I don't think I did them justice here.

When taking a break, I thought about Frida Kahlo after the accident that was to change her life forever. Art must have been a tremendous release to someone like herself, in pain and confined. I am still amazed that more of us don't do it. There are of course other ways to feel that release and drawing or painting are only two of them. 

My teacher was Peter Loewer.  Illustrator, artist, writer, natural historian, teacher.

Color on a Monday

This little picture doesn't do the pansies in our garden justice. It's the time of year when they seem to be happiest. I experimented with watercolors here for the first time in about twenty years.

I had a box as a teenager that my parents bought me. Opening a little box of paint that is all yours feels very good. I didn't think I liked watercolors, the examples I had seen of them were rather twee and traditional.

Look at the work of Dez'Mon Omega for some remarkable examples of watercolors.

About a Bone

This bone has been my companion for a couple of weeks. I borrowed it from my teacher who generously lets us take home objects to work on from his wonderful collection. As beautiful and intriguing as all his objects were, there was something about this bone I took to immediately. Origins are unknown. The yellowy white color of it was pleasing as well as the shape that reminded me of a spaceship.

When I was younger my parents took me to, I think, the home of Graham Sutherland in Pembrokeshire. I remember finding his collection of 'objets trouve' fascinating and started my own.  Those items are long gone, sadly. However this class is inspiring me to start this collection again. When I looked at the bone, the memories of that trip became vivid.

Back to the bone. I few weeks ago I did my first rendering of it with a bamboo reed pen and in the last class, after my drawings of the leaves, I did this sketch. It took less than half an hour, and I surprised myself with assured I felt when doing it. I felt I knew where the shading should be, how to blend the colors - as if I was channeling someone else. It was an intense and fleeting experience that I hope I have again.

Do

It is interesting how the mind's eye betrays. Ideas that I am so sure of, in execution disappoint. The automatic reaction is frustration. Except the more I do and the less I think, the more I  am discovering.

Drawing Beyond the Past

Dogged - I submit to the page,

My first resistance deflated.

Keep going, fill the space.

God, but you need stamina!

To not remember 

What it was like to be young 

And no good.

Is it OK?

It doesn't matter, keep going.

Now there are shells 

Like planets or mischievous thoughts.

No revelation, I had forgotten to defy the end.

Thank you Mr. Klee

Last week, drawing seemed impossible, like pulling ugly rotten wisdom teeth from a stubborn mouth. This week, I used a bamboo reed pen for the first time and everything seemed to open up. Below is the picture I worked on in class - a bleached piece of bone and sea anemones.

We had begun the lesson with slides of drawings, mostly by Paul Klee. Our teacher used these to encourage us to be ambitious and fantastical. I tend to find the more freedom I am given, the more paralyzed I feel - too many decisions to make. However, drawing has been intimidating to me for so long that this permission for free reign was the spark I had needed.

Gossip, the Bloomsbury Group and Facebook

Where I am is a gift: a community college and as such a place of learning and ideas. Sometimes. I work in an office in the library. Oh to go out of my office and face row upon row of books! The very area where I work is a perk of the job to my mind.

Last week I went to an English Lit class that is studying British literature. My first degree was in literature and they are studying one of my favorite periods, the modernists. It feels luxurious to spend time talking about 'A Room of One's Own'. The students in the class were insightful and wise, more so than we credit to twenty-somethings having. They drew parallels between the upheavals of the post WWI world with our world now.

'What would have Woolf thought about Facebook?' one student asked.

What a great question and one to which I have given great thought.  I think that there has to be two elements to consider. First, Woolf was part of the Bloomsbury group - a group of artists, thinkers, socialites from the middle to upper classes. They were sophisticated, but they were also gossips. So from that aspect, Woolf perhaps would be intrigued by Facebook both as a gossip and a writer who loved characters. However, Woolf's insistence that women carve out their own space is a little at odds with the nature of social networking. You may think that in this universe, you have autonomy but I don't think that is really true. I am surprised at how little control I have over space  online, especially within the realms of Twitter and Facebook. Words are turned against you, pictures become the subject of other people's conversations.

Social networking has a dark side, as we all know - or do we? The internet has become a god like thing, omniscient, indestructible. Like the Old Testament creator, it can be jealous, hateful and legion in its intolerance as well as an important vehicle for spreading love and change. I think that Woolf would be both intrigued and revolted.

Los Gatitos after Las Meninas

This was my submission for the penultimate assignment in the MOOC I am doing on art history. Our task was to rework the paint Las Meninas by Velazquez. I chose cats because I think they are beautiful and seem to be a favorite pet of artists. Cats have certainly found their place in the virtual world, millions of people watch videos of them online everyday. I like humor in art and I like to create humor in art.

Draw to Remember

A new class. This one on drawing from nature. Not an obvious choice based on my interests, though I am a gardener and find natural objects interesting. Drawing is my Achilles' heal which is why this was a good class to choose.

 The precision and detail was demanding but I am quite pleased with what I managed to accomplish. The technique my new teacher recommended had a great similarity with the way my other teacher showed us how to paint. Start by drawing a broad shape that resembles the subject, then fill in with detail. This worked well for me, so that when it came to drawing my second object I felt more confident.

Our teacher began by showing us some slides of drawings, sketches and water colors that revealed the variety of results using the media.  As he went through the slides, he talked about using sketching and drawing to fix moments in one's memory. In particular there was a slide of one of his own drawings that he had done at Kew Gardens in London. He told us that because of this little sketch he remembered everything about the day. This I think, is an important idea and makes me think of why I write poetry. I write poetry to remember a moment, and in so doing that moment is crystallized in a manner that is lacking in typical prose descriptions.  The act of creating embosses that memory and captures the essence. Everyday language can be clunky and frustrating. Art makes communication fluid and nuanced.

{Re}Happening 2014

Attending the {Re}Happening was a little like slipping into a dream. Through the darkness people wandered in and out of vision and earshot. Every now and then a familiar face would float into my line of sight, but they didn’t recognize me and I let them pass without approaching them. Walking was hard, the ground uneven in the velvety night. If I am hungry at night I often dream about food, usually cakes or ice-cream. These dreams seem to always involve me not having enough money to buy all the things I want and I wake up ravenous. At the {Re}Happening ice cream and cake was free. If there is a heaven, I want it to be like this. Not only because of the free treats. I cannot think of anything more wonderful than going from place to place to experience art projects that were wild and wonderful, meditative and inquiring. Often flawed, but that is part of it. I cannot do justice to the evening merely through descriptive writing. Experience is everything. I will keep trying.

Black Mountain College of Arts

A quick post. The 2014 {Re}Happening was last Saturday. It was truly amazing. Here is a board about the Black Mountain College of Arts and the {Re}Happening

Doing Cubism

 

Here's some advice. If you're interested in trying Cubism, don't do what I did and use as one of your subjects a perfectly cylindrical biscuit (cookie) tube. One of the essential ideas about Cubism was painting a subject from different angles. Great. Except that cylinders are more or less the same from every angle. The picture I did is growing on me. I need to finish it. I think the little cowboy hats with the very British word 'Jubilee' are funny. The ties from different angles look like search lights, which could not have predicted being the result when I started. I may post the end result here.

Good times. 

In Mud

According to the teacher of my art class, 'mud' does not refer to a colour, rather a colour that you didn't intend.
It seems that most of my adult life has been spent in mud, doing things and making decisions that took me somewhere unintended. I suppose that is the advantage of not having clear ambitions. I can't recall ever having long-term goals. That doesn't mean I was unmotivated. Whatever I was doing at any time, I threw myself into - teaching, travelling, being in love. 
This art class is merely the most recent. I don't know whether this will be something that becomes a long-term activity, I know that I am enjoying it now.

There are definite advantages to living in mud. You don't get disappointed and there is always something new to discover. I recently read an article about Cindy Sherman in Vanity Fair and she said: "I had no idea I would really become an artist. I never would have thought I'd be doing this for 35 years." 35 years in mud has resulted in some amazing work.

I intend to stay in the mud. I hope that it spreads and more people see the beauty in it.

Gilt

A few years ago when I was planning my wedding, I really got into kimono silks. So often when I come across a textile I love, I get nervous about doing anything with it. The fans used here seemed an effective way of displaying the fabrics. I think the gold spray paint background sets the colours off nicely. The piece makes me think of Jeff Koons, the gold reminds me of the gold statue he did of Michael Jackson and Bubbles.

The gold seems contemporary in a cold, extravagant way, whereas the silks are warmer and inviting.

Permissions

I think it's time to put inspiration in its place.

In one week, I heard the word ‘permission’ used twice by two different art educators. Once was to describe using a sketchbook through the MOOC I am doing. Another occasion used by the teacher of my evening class on art, in reference to creating without a plan. I found it interesting that they both used that word: ‘permission’. It’s a gentle word, a considered ‘yes’with a gentle hush to it. Don’t ‘force’ or ‘try’ but ‘give yourself permission’ to work, to do. That’s the problem with inspiration, it denies us permission. Should we throw ourselves at the mercy of inspiration, we might never create anything. Inspiration says we should not work but wait and wait and if nothing comes then it is because we are not ‘good’ at whatever it is we're trying to do.

Inspiration is also, I think detrimental to the notion of education and teaching.   Some teachers see themselves as central to the learning process, they feel that it is up to them to inspire their students. I find fault with this. If you as an educator are trying to fill your education with pizazz and 'jazz hands', students become passive, back seat drivers to their own learning. Why bother to be curious when your teacher is going to present what they think is important, and only if they present it in a charismatic way will you sit up and take notice? Educators put excessive amounts of pressure on themselves to perform sometimes, and in so doing lose sight of what is important, creating an environment of curiosity and choice making.Without ego, thanks very much.

From my first degree, I remember the teachers who had charisma coming out of their ears. I do not remember anything about what those charismatic teachers were supposed to be teaching me. It is the pointless performance that lingers.

Below is a picture of the permission I gave myself to hang my work, in a room and not care about how it looks. To me they are each mementoes of an occasion when I was doing something I loved. Each one is a snapshot of a journey I took, sometimes in a class, but it was always between me and the work.  The teacher just gave me an idea of a path to try.